How I Discovered Pi At 11
Posted Sep 7, 2019 04:15 PM
I want to start this blog post with some background information before I dive right in. This is a serious and genuine story, which is kinda funny, but also kind of sad in the same sense.Growing up I was really good at mathematics, I wasn't a savant or anything, but for a normal functioning brain my mathematical ability was better than any peer at my school from my first year of school to the 2nd last year of highschool (Australian school system starts at prep or grade 0 in primary school, go to highschool in grade 7, and finish highschool in year 12. So 13 years, then uni).
In year 3 we had a game called the Timestable Ladder. It was a vertical board with all our names on it stuck with velcro. You and the person above you starting from the bottom, vs'd each other in a timed mathematical battle essentially, the teacher would just say a random multiplication, whoever said it first won, and went above the other person. If you win, you vs the next person, making your way up the ladder. I was on the top of this ladder for years, even when merging the competition with 3+ classes, I still never left the top. I knew all the answers for 1's through to 13s times tables. #flexinonthemkids
From year 4 I played chess in the school team. I am not a nerdy type of guy, I was actually extremely athletic and sporty. But I could go from hanging out in the biggest group of sweaty footballers, to playing chess (or even Magic: The Gathering) with the nerdy peeps. I won a lot of awards from chess... making it state multiple times with nothing but logic (I never studied techniques).
In year 5, my older sister was in year 8 highschool doing medium grade algebra. She couldn't do it, and one night she had a bit of a tantrum and as she stormed down the hallway I asked if I could have a go at her textbook. In just the afternoon I taught myself basic and complex fractions and algebra. I helped my sister with her math homework and quite a lot of the time just did it for her for fun.
Now in year 5 I was 11, I had just learned all of this by myself. One day I was sitting at the table scribbling and I drew a circle inside of a square. I looked at the edges and thought "If I invert these corners, the perimeter of the square remains the same, yet being closer to the circle". I kept halving and inverting the corners of the square until it was as close to the circle as possible. I couldn't get THAT close because it was drawn freehand. I took what I had found and discovered the number 4, if I multiplied the radius of the circle by 4, and squared it I got the area. I only knew how to get the area of a square. I had no clue what pi was. My dad came inside from the shed, and I said "Look what I found" and walked him through it, he snickered and said "huh, you found pie" and walked off. This part is the funny yet kinda sad part. Funny because my dads reaction, but kind of sad because I was never really pushed to achieve.... Which is kinda sad. Later in adult life I Googled it and its a genuine theorem to approximating pi I assume?
![[Image: main-qimg-3af891681410f3f32fc23cb4a4eb90d0.webp]](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3af891681410f3f32fc23cb4a4eb90d0.webp)
From drawing I guess I made it to around in between stages 3-4. 4 isn't 3.142 but it's pretty fucking close, especially for an 11 year old.
That's pretty much my story, but for a little continuation into my future after this point. I started fractions in year 6, and 7. I already knew everything, I would do all my work in about a minute and sit there doing whatever I needed for the remainder. Year 8, 9, 10 was the same. Year 11 I picked up advanced mathematics as a higher level course. First time I had been challenged in years. At the same time I did general mathematics, my close mate ended up moving away, I dropped out of advanced mathematics, and continued general in year 11 and 12. Lazy kid, because no drive, no push. Spent the last 2 years of highschool teaching everyone in my class how to do math. Teachers were useless, generally just reading aloud what the textbook says. I would give differing examples, and explain in simplistic terms.
Today the only thing I see math appearing really is my recent exposure to programming. Because a mathematical brain isn't really a mathematical brain per se, its a programmatic logical brain capable of logical processing and deduction. I find learning programming languages very easy, and can grasp the intermediate grades in no time at all. Also my degree in psychology has some complex statistics, so it helps understanding numbers, a lot of people failed stats in my classes, only has like a 50% pass rate.
